June 18, 2009

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POLITICO learned today that the Washington Post has terminated its relationship with liberal columnist/blogger Dan Froomkin. Froomkin authored the "White House Watch" blog and was told today that the blog had essentially run its course.

Washington Post Media Communications Director Kris Coratti tells POLITICO that "our editors and research teams are constantly reviewing our columns, blogs and other content to make sure we're giving readers the most value when they are on our site while balancing the need to make the most of our resources. Unfortunately, this means that sometimes features must be eliminated, and this time it was the blog that Dan Froomkin freelanced for washingtonpost.com."

"I was told that it had been determined that my White House Watch blog wasn’t 'working' anymore," said Froomkin. "Personally, I thought it was still working very well, and based on reader feedback, a lot of readers thought so, too. I also felt White House Watch was a great fit with The Washington Post brand, and what its readers reasonably expect from the Post online. As I’ve written elsewhere, (http://www.niemanlab.org/category/themes/danfroomkin) I think that the future success of our business depends on journalists enthusiastically pursuing accountability and calling it like they see it. That’s what I tried to do every day. Now I guess I'll have to try to do it someplace else."

Many Froomkin fans took to the blogosphere to denounce the decision.

Andrew Sullivan called Froomkin the paper's "best blogger" and wrote: "Dan's work on torture may be one reason he is now gone. The way in which the WaPo has been coopted by the neocon right, especially in its editorial pages, is getting more and more disturbing. This purge will prompt a real revolt in the blogosphere. And it should."

Salon's Glenn Greenwald echoed Sullivan's praise of Froomkin and said: "All of this underscores a critical and oft-overlooked point: what one finds virtually nowhere in the establishment press are those who criticize Obama not in order to advance their tawdry right-wing agenda but because the principles that led them to criticize Bush compel similar criticism of Obama. Rachel Maddow is one of the few prominent media figures who will interview and criticize Democratic politicians 'from the Left' (and it's hardly a coincidence that it was MSNBC's decision to give Maddow her own show -- rather than the endless array of right-wing talk show hosts plaguing television for years -- which prompted a tidal wave of 'concern' over whether cable news was becoming 'too partisan'). In general, however, those who opine from the Maddow/Froomkin perspective are a very endangered species, and it just became more endangered as the Post fires one if its most popular, talented, principled and substantive columnists."

On DailyKos, "numediaman" writes: "In the end, Donald Graham and Fred Hiatt are moving the Post hard right. Their support for war was not just a kiss up to power, but a real commitment to the neo-con way of looking at the world."

Gawker: "The Washington Post, which pays money to opinion writers such as Bill Kristol (smarmy) and Richard Cohen (smarmier), has fired blogger Dan Froomkin, one of the only WaPo opinion writers who pointed out that the Bush White House was crooked."

The snark kings at Wonkette protested as well: "Everyone give it up for your capital city’s hometown newspaper, the very liberal Washington Post, which has abruptly fired its only liberal pundit, Dan Froomkin, who in past years did more than the rest of the Post op-ed staff combined to show how our beloved leaders George W. Bush and Richard 'Dick' Cheney were careless law-breaking criminals from Hell."

Froomkin's work for the Post has, at times, been amongst the most popular, but he has also ruffled some feathers internally at the Post, including former ombudsman Deb Howell, who used a column to field complaints over the labeling of Froomkin's "highly opinionated and liberal" "White House Briefing" column, which was subsequently changed to "White House Watch."

Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer even took Froomkin to task in one of his columns, calling Froomkin's analysis "stupid."

Reader Comments (128)

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since the country gave up (correctly) on Bush II, I haven't been reading Froomkin; maybe others stopped too, so his ratings could have been down.
with that said, I'd pretty much given up on WaPo a while ago: even for free it mostly sucks. I get my news elsewhere now.

haha attempts to compare froomkin to krauthammer are absolutely ridiculous. you do realize that froomkin's entire act consisted of adding one, or two sentence snarky reactions to three or four paragraph long exceprts from OTHER PEOPLE's columns?
I've been saying for over a year that FRoomkin needed to find a new job. With Bush no longer in power, Froomkin went from actually being pointless to the much worse fate of being percieved as such.
I could've told washingtonpost.com to pull the trigger this time last year.

Now let's pick some conservative commentators and go after their jobs, and keep after them until they are ruined. I don't care who you pick, just keep calling for them to be boycotted and fired. they are any number we could ruin this way.

"And yet the Post continues to give Krauthammer..."
Maybe he's one the left could go after. It doesn't matter, just so long as we get some of them fired. Also time to start agitating for the Fairness Doctrine and things like that, and going after Col. Murdoch a lot more vigorously and publicly.

michael mchugh, froomkin is disposible because all he does is aggregates other people's material (maybe he can go work for HuffPost?) whereas krauthammer is invaluable because he adds something original and of value to the market place of ideas.
no one had to get froomkin fired, he rendered himself useless because of his inability to bring anything to the table than a crazy little fro.

Dan, don't let the door bang you on the way out. Too liberal even for the Post? That says it all. I found him to be snarky and condescending. And what a lapdog for the left. I hope they don't find another blogger of his ilk to replace him. Have respect for your readers, can you, WaPo?

The big question now is, who's going to be smart enough to pick up Froomkin's excellent analysis? Politico? New York Times?
Whatever. It's WaPo's loss -- and Froomkin isn't going away, not with so many fans.

Joke. What a rag, as a lifelong resident of the DC area, I haven't renewed my subscription since 2002 -- and probably never will -- but I'll continue to enjoy mocking management in the comments sections. Watching the internet communication and tools of the grassroots work going in Iran, we all know direction real journalism is headed, anyway. Dan will find a stronger limb to stand on in the future.

Froomkin's blog was the best thing on the Wapo's website. He did an incredibly thorough job of summarizing and linking to important comment on the major stories of the day. He's so good, he's sure to bounce back. The quality of the Post will suffer. A truly dumb decision.

I only went to WaPo to mock all the clueless aholes like Broder and Krauthammer and to read the wonder posts of Froomkin...I'm taking it off my bookmark bar, and will never go there again!
This is absolutely disgraceful...firing the one person there who had any integrity at all!
We love you Dan!

Could someone get in touch with GOP Rep. Hoekstra? I'm thinking of comparing the sacking of a blogger to various purges throughout human history, but I need his input to make sure I get just the right one.

The fact Sandra actually uses the phrase "Too liberal even for the Post?" is absolutely terrifying.
WashPost is not a liberal paper, and it's main editorial columnists are now primarily partisan right-wing.
My question is where the Paper intends to go -- Hire a more "cutting-edge" progressive to balance Krautheimer? Or head straight for right-wing editorializing? I imagine this would mean claiming a moderate centrist like Gerson is their "liberal" voice.

Dan Froomikin helped me stay sane during the Bush years. When the rest of the paper was passing along Bush spin with a straight face, Froomkin dedicated his blog to pointing out what a joke that adminsitration in fact was. Thanks, Dan. Politico, hire that guy.

Let's see. Froomkin who was right about Iraq, WMDs, and Krauthammer's idiotic ticking time bomb justification for torture is fired. Krauthammer and other right wing columinists, whose opinions on WMDs, the 'relationship' Iraq and AQ, the 'danger' of Iran etc etc are retained?
Froomkin's columns are linked to a lot and generate far more traffic to the Post than Krauthammer and his ilk.
A stupid decision.
Oh, dummypants, you are aptly named.

A very sad day to see one of the most objective truth seekers get the axe from what was one a great newspaper. Do you remember the Watergate era? Rubber stamping pseudo republicans brown shirts will probably flock to the WAPO.

Liberal? Wasn't the Washington Post the rag that passed on the opportunity to expose a Republican serial rapist and heroin pusher to children in Congress to protect the far right?
Doesn't sound too liberal to me. Most rags would appreciate a Pulitzer Prize.

"...krauthammer is invaluable because he adds something original and of value to the market place of ideas."
No, sorry, hasn't happened since the mid-'20s, except for their big epiphany in the late sixties: "Hey, we got all these marketing experts at all our corporations. They should be able to repackage our drying turds as food for thought." And so was born Hudson, AEI, Manhattan Inst, Federalist Society, ACLJ, ad infinitum, and oh, so ad nauseum.
Krauthammer's just another of that crowd of paid re-packagers.

This 16-year (paleoconservative lifelong Republican) subscriber of the Post canceled it when they started running Kristol, and we haven't missed it a bit. Thanks for reminding me why we did the right thing. You're a dupe if you're paying for their neocon propaganda; it's free on the net and bonus--for the lefties--it's the green alternative.

And this brainless move surprised who? WAPO is a failing paper of the past trying to hold on through the Neo Cons and nut job conservatives. I suppose they think that the 20% of the American people left identifying as republicans will save them. LOL NOT HAPPENING!!! Now? This moderate Republican will cancel my script and will no longer visit their site. Not a biggie to them I am sure but it makes me feel better when they punish the one person left there who writes the REAL NEWS. Fox & Wapo... marriage they can support!

The Ministry of Truth (formerly known as Washington Post) will no longer tolerate Mr. Froomkin's recent attention to the Obama Adminsitration's repudiation of Amendments 4, 5, 6 and 8 to the U.S. Constitution. Henceforth the people will enjoy those rights which Big Brother feels are compatible with his objectives, and the Ministry of Truth will confine itself to explaining why this is reasonable and generous.

I am just sitting here in shock. I can't believe this. This is so, so wrong. I can't begin to imagine what the Post is thinking, and I will certainly be contacting them to express my disgust and outrage at this terrible decision.
Dan: You are the best. I just can't believe this is happening.

Froomkin destroyed Bush every day. Yet, when Obama became president, he spent his columns destroying Cheney. He would sometimes mention Obama, much like serfs mentioned their Lordship, alway adoring, kind of weird man-love way. No matter what Obama did, Froomkin wrote how wonderful it was. He never challenged him on transparency issues, stimulus numbers, hiring lobbyists. The bias and censorship was evident even to the radically left-wing Washington Post.

fred Hiatt is killing the Post's editorial section, pure and simple. There's no vetting of columns (see George Will's embarrassing screwups on global warming facts, Robert Kagan's fallacious hit piece on Obama yesterday, or any number of Krauthammer's error-ridden screeds), no pretense of balancea, and no respect for the intelligence of WaPo's readership. (Though the fact that many still subscribe to the Post even as it spits in their faces may make that last point a bit hard to argue.)
Dan Froomkin was one of the very few genuine assets the online WaPo had going for it. I admit that my reading of Dan's column has dropped off quite a bit since the Crawford Idiot finally crawled back into well-deserved obscurity, so I guess I and others like me may be partially to blame. Of course, that doesn't mean I then switched over and started to read the mundane drivel offered up by Hiatt's beloved rightwingnut propagandists either; I lost interest, after all, not brain cells.
I was around and reading the Post back in its finest days when integrity and truth and investigative journalism meant something (IOW, before Woodward became a useless sellout and subpar "thinkers" started becoming the norm on the op-ed page). I loved and respected the hell out of Katharine Graham's paper back then, because it *was* a hell of a paper. Today, one more nail gets pounded into that grand corpse's coffin. Very sad indeed.
Dan Froomkin, sir, you are a true mensch and a credit to the tradition of Murrow and Sevareid and all those who brought and continue to bring truth to light. Thank you.

It's interesting that some here would pipe up in condemnation (or dismissal) of Froomkin, when in fact he's proven more intellectual integrity than the lot of them. He's been holding Obama's feet to the fire as consistently as he had held Bush's, and yet this matters not a jot to people whose discrimination can't exceed "our guy good, other guy bad."
Seriously, wingnuts, there are hundreds of shades of grey between black and white - don't they interest you at ALL?!?
And if you could pore through the record and find ONE *inherently* faulty analysis from Froomkin (as opposed to one that simply doesn't coddle your ideology), could you please share it? (At least the search would keep you busy for a few YEARS...)
It's fascinating that you don't even recognize honest debate, let alone respect it. Froomkin basically contrasted words against deeds, regardless which side he was writing about. Doesn't that task engender any respect at ALL?
Those who would spit on Froomkin just illustrate how blind (and blithe) they are. (And, of course, now we can promote the WaPo to the head of the line.)

Krauthammer does add his original inanity to the paper, so there's added for the Post. They sell inanity, much of it unoriginal. With Krauthammer, they have an inane producer.
Newspapers are irrelevant.

Froomkin did some amazing analysis of the executive branch and how it worked with congress. Really helped one understand the bigger picture. He was great at pointing out the unprecedented nature of the Bush presidency and the whole Unitary Executive theory.
I looked forward to his posts. He'll be missed. It is sad that the Post seems to be going the way of the Washington Times. They used to be the last remaining reputatable newspaper in town. I have a subscription to their paper edition. It is being now canceled.

Clearly, WaPo is hitching it's wagon to the last form of support possible for that form of media. Advertising? So last century. No, they're going the way of the Weekly Standard and their crosstown rival, the Washington Times. Instead of trying to turn a profit, just have a rich benefactor cover your tab. Sounds like conservative principles, and hypocrisy, in action...

It's not the liberal/conservative balance at the Post that concerns me; it's the smart/stupid quotient. They can Froomkin and keep Richard Cohen? If Froomkin's blog has "run its course," could someone explain what course Cohen has been on? The guys is absolutely clueless.

Froomkin spent eight years writing the same piece "Bush Lied, People Died." It didn't make that much sense when Bush was president. Now that he's gone, it makes no sense whatsoever.
Thanks for playin Froomkin. Don't let the door hit you in the --- on the way out.

Dan Froomkin is a reporter of the highest quality, in the old-fashioned sense of the word: he is a man who digs and lets the chips fall where they may. He has criticized both Bush and Obama, particularly when their decisions about torture and secrecy collided with this nation's values as he understood them.
Besides the criticism, Dan Froomkin has consistently written detailed research stories. It's something the Washington Post used to be famous for (Bernstein and Woodward on Watergate is a brilliant example), but something this newspaper no longer attempts.
A few years ago a Washington Post ombudsman labeled Dan Froomkin "opinionated". This from a newspaper whose regular columnists now include Charles Krauthammer, William Kristol, and George Will -- a crew who have sold out their formidable intellects for a mess of pottage and become neo-con propagandists.
Dan Froomkin will easily enough find another outlet. What is sad is that he had to suffer this gratuitous insult and that a once-great newspaper like the Washington Post is moving into the orbit of sources like Murdoch and Fox.

And this line from Dan Froomkin just yesterday -- for those who consider him a knee-jerk Bush-basher: "Obama's approach to disclosure issues is turning out to be profoundly schizophrenic. On national security issues, Obama has been intensely disappointing. Most notably, I now consider him a willing and active partner in the cover-up of the Bush torture legacy." -- No, this is a person who digs for the truth and lays it out no matter which party it sticks to. And how many writers do you know like that?

This is a sad day for journalism and for accountability.
It also doesn't seem to make a lot of financial sense. Dan wasn't consuming paper or ink. He had a large and loyal readership, who will now go elsewhere.
What was the Post thinking?? I don't tend to be a conspiracy theorist, but is the Post online really in the clutches of the neocons??

I love that all the Froomkin fans are trying to flood a board like this with your mock outrage about how "great" a writer he was. The truth is he represented the WORST kind of journalist out there -- one who wore his bias on his sleeve SO overtly that it was groan-inducing. Someone above said he held Obama as accountable as Bush. REALLY? Care to name a few posts of Froomkin's where he actually did that? No...really...I'll wait. (crickets chirping) Yeah, that's what I thought. Newspapers have no use for people like Froomkin. As someone else noted above, when Bush was in office, Froomkin went after him. When Obama was elected, Froomkin chose to write about...Bush. With the biggest economic disaster going on since the Depression and Obama trying to turn the country into socialists, Froomkin chose to write about...Cheney. Sensing a pattern there? Good riddance to him. Now the paper can use that salary to hire a REAL writer.

Nothing new here. The Post has been a declining right-wing paper for some time. They hire unemployed right-wing hacks for their Op-Ed page and fill in with Democratic jerks like Cohen so that they claim "balance". Why the paper's largely Democratic readership tolerates this rubbish in what is generally a mediocre paper is beyond me. Just say no and read the NY Times or better the Financial Times plus a local paper for local news.
(PS I don't have a dog in the Froomkin fight. It's the poor journalism and editorial policy of the Post in general that bothers me.)

I stopped reading froomkin when his blog changed from non partisan to very partisan. He was becoming a left wing version of Limbaugh, taking things out of context then pounding on it. I really missed his old blog, thought it was the best on the post at the time

WAPO must have decided that if they wanted to survive the "LIBERAL" drivel had to stop. The people are getting tired of the "LIBERAL" bile being spewed by "IDIOTS" like Froomkin. The Obama "STATE RUN MEDIA" hasn't see hard times yet. Just hang on and watch the readership and ratings continue going down the tubes.

Let's see, I'm posting again at 10 PM. and there's only 79 comments. Half of us could care less about Froomkin. So I guess you're going out with a whimper instead of a bang, Dan. Try Amway sales. I hear the brushes are pretty good.

"Dan Froomkin is a reporter of the highest quality"
Dan Froomkin has never reported a thing. He's a blogger who merely quotes others. The dirty secret you won't hear from bloggers is that no one wants to pay for unoriginal work like Froomkin's. Traffic is meaningless if there's no way to monetize it. Commenting on someone else's hard work isn't reporting. (Just ask the folks at the money-losing Politico.) And ultimately no one cares, which is why a story like this is generating zero outrage outside of a group of threatened bloggers.

I am stunned. Froomkin had successfully taken a blog started during the Bush era and thoughtfully redirected it to this new administration. He was highly critical of the promises of transparency by the Obama administration not being met, and gave specific examples. He was very much like Rachel Madow, giving the same level of scrutiny to this new administration that he had to the old. That used to be called objectivity and it was called a journalistic virtue. I am really bothered that a blog that criticized the White House legitimately, not for the sake of criticizing it but for the sake of honesty, has abruptly vanished. The new Washington Post editorial management has no delicacy, nuance, or judgment. It comes across as leaden and out of touch in a new age it does not understand.
These are the same people who pre-emptively apologized for a humor column by Pulitzer winner (and Obama supporter) Gene Weingarten, yes, the nicest guy in the world, because it happened to mention a gorilla. Apparently all primate references are presumptively racist now.

Froomkin made his name as a Bush hater who fed raw meat to the Lefties who gorged themselves on his vile ramblings.He won`t be missed.Maybe he will find a home with Huffington or with the insufferable Keith Oberman.

I guess there's no need to watch WH activities any more. Nothing to see here, folks. All's fine now, that evil Bush went back to Texas.
Seriously, what would Froomkin write about today? Obama's dog's bowel movements?

If Froomkin is as good as Calderone and Sullivan believe then he will be freelancing his blog somewhere else very shortly. Not that I am holding my breath... I found him to be a tedious liberal whose only redeeming quality as a journalist was that he didn't pretend to be unbiased.

That said, I think the reason that his blog was cut was that as national news stories start to turn Negative against the Obama Administration the Washington Post wanted to get rid of a column that would expose such heresy. The Post's Obama Protection is better than the Secret Service's.

I don't quite understand, there were clearly people who went there to read him. Are they actively trying to reduce their readership? Sending Froomkin to another online-only forum seems likely to hasten their demise...

Our generation has mostly given up on the classic format newspapers anyhow. Probably just as well that WaPo stopped trying.

I dropped my subscription to the Post the first time they editorialized in support of non-public school vouchers. Herblock had to be rolling in his grave. This latest move reconfirms their movement toward the ideological right. They're almost as bad now as the Washington Times. DC badly needs a major newspaper that represents ideological left views in its editorials. Once it was the Post, but those days are obviously long gone.

Lets see, they fire Froomkin, but keep Will, Gerson. Kraut Dionne,. Looks like they want to stifle anyone who might try to inform the public. Any paper that keeps these guys and dumps Froomkin must really have a right wing agenda.Maybe like stopping healthcare. No one can say say liberal media with a straight face again. Its obvious the Repubs own all the media. Rush never has to appologise , but Dave Letterman does. I hope Froomkin comes back and gives them hell.

To keep syndicated columnist and FoxNews ever-presence Charles Krauthammer and show Dan Froomkin the door is WaPo dumb. I don't need a Krauthammer with his imperious neocon thinking to tell me what's up. If this is cost-cutting it's in the wrong direction and I cancelled my subscription to the Post. Don't need their vanilla editorial page, thank you Fred Hiatt, don't need their poor op-ed assemblage of Krauthammer, Kristol, Broder, Samuelson and Dionne who have few primary sources among them, Krauthammer the least by a mile. The Post has lost its voice, lost its edge, probably is reining in its investigative journalists (Dana Priest, Karen De Young, Tom Ricks, Walter Pincus). It's become a minor league hometown newspaper with no balls.

Oh thank goodness. How one can run a blog leading with George W Bush 90 days in a row even after he's been out of office for several months is beyond me.
I stopped reading a while ago but am suprised and delighted with his exit. Yeah, he sorta tried to throw a few barbs at Obama but you could see his heart wasn't in it.

the WaPo is obviously positioning itself as the conservative national paper opposite the New York Times.
with the national void created by the folding of big city newspapers, the Post has reason to turn its attention away from the Washington Times and toward the New York version

I was shocked when I read here (even before WaPost made it official) that Froomkin was going. Those commentors who think he had a liberal bias and didn't attack Obama enough are dead-wrong. He called Obama out on not releasing torture pictures, continuing the hide-it policies of the previous administration, and trying to keep the CIA from releasing torture memos. I started reading Froomkin because he actually had facts and links to those facts that backed what he said, unlike the likes of Krauthammer and Gerson, who just spewed ideology not backed by fact. And his memory was razor-sharp, and could reference past facts quickly if necessary. I am now done with WaPost - a hometown paper I grew up with. They are no better than moonie paper Washington Times - check out their circulation. Soon to be WaPo's numbers.

The Post needs to have its HVAC system checked for aerosolized traces of Teh Stoopid.
And for those gloating over Froomkin's departure: Yeah, he was a liberal, but he was a liberal willing to hold Obama's behavior up against the standard of his rhetoric and call BS when Obama pulled some of the same dumb stuff Bush did -- govt secrecy, for example. And to suggest, given the current makeup of the Post's stable of pundits (Krauthammer, Will, Hiatt, et al.), that the remaining staff is "99.99% in the 'on Obama's jock' genre" is just butt-ignorant.

This is great news! Now the Liberals can get a taste - at least WP had professional cause, unlike Obuma's firing of IG's and Walpin!
Good riddens FROOMKIN!!! Maybe Obuma will make you an ambassador now!!

To Fairfax voter: Rachel Maddow and the rest of them at msnbc do not give equal grief to this admin as they tried to pummell the last admin. The word equal ha not described anything on their prime time. Also they will not have an opposing view on the show on a regular basis and if by chance they do they try to shout over them for stating facts.

It's interesting - there are many snarky comments from both sides about the Post's firing Froomkin, but the only comments evidencing any thoughtful analysis or even familiarity with Froomkin's work conclude that the Post's decision was a big mistake. Looks like the ability to read and use logical analysis to reach a reasoned conclusion is all on the liberal side. WHAT a SURPRISE (that's called "irony," all you guys who are proud to include the word "dumb" in your signature line).

Froomkin's more lap dog to Obama than watch dog. The WaPo suffered financially when regular paper subscribers like myself dropped them over the embarrassing skewed coverage during the 2008 campaign. I guess management got wise and starting culling some of the journalists-turned- Obama cheerleaders in an attempt to reclaim legitimacy. Enjoy reading how the conservative press in taking over. That's rich. Kudos to the post. Don't worry for Froomkin, I'm sure there's a job waiting for him in the Executive Branch.